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18 December 2023  Ashley S. Miller  Specialist of Customer Service Dept.
 

Summary
Learn how to fix the issue "external hard drive freezes" when accessing them through the computer file explorer. Discover effective solutions in this article.



Table of contents

table iconI. What is a mobile hard disk and what causes it to get stuck/frozen
table iconII. How to solve the problem of stuck/frozen mobile hard disk?
table iconIII. How to restore the data in the mobile hard disk?
external hard drive freezes

I. What is a mobile hard disk and what causes it to get stuck/frozen

A portable hard drive is a type of storage device that can be easily connected to a computer, providing additional storage space. Unlike internal hard drives, external hard drives are portable and can be used to store files from various devices. This makes them a convenient and secure option for backing up important files.
Using a mobile hard disk on your computer may result in the computer freezing or appearing to crash with the progress bar frozen and no response to mouse clicks. This can occur due to various reasons, such as:
● Failure to safely remove the mobile hard disk leads to bad sectors
● The computer or mobile hard disk fails due to a sudden power failure
● virus attack
If you are currently facing the issue of your computer freezing due to your mobile hard drive, you can resolve it by shutting down your computer, removing the hard drive, and restarting the computer for further repairs. Let’s explore the steps to fix the problem of a frozen computer caused by an external hard drive.

II. How to solve the problem of stuck/frozen mobile hard disk?

1. Run antivirus software

Sometimes, viruses and malware can cause such errors. So, connect your mobile hard drive to your computer and scan your mobile hard drive with a reliable antivirus software.

2. Use Windows built-in tools to check and repair the mobile hard disk

You can try to use Windows built-in tools to check and fix external hard drive errors. In Windows 10, 8 or 7 do the following:
Step 1: Connect the mobile hard disk to the computer, press (Windows + R) keys at the same time, please enter (diskmgmt.msc) in the pop-up input box, and then click (OK) to enter the disk management.
run disk management
Step 2: Right-click on the mobile hard disk, and then select (Properties) on the menu.
disk-management
Step 3: In the (Tools) column, select (Check), and then wait for the scan and repair to complete. If there are file system errors, bad sectors, etc., you may need to restart the computer to complete the repair process.
check disk from my computer

3. Use the chkdsk command to repair the mobile hard disk

If the mobile hard disk has bad sectors, you can use the chkdsk command to repair them. The operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Search (cmd) directly in the search box in the lower left corner, and select (run as administrator) to open the command prompt.
run as administrator
Step 2: Enter the command (chkdsk F: /f /r /x) in the command prompt and press the (Enter) key to fix the external hard disk error. After the mobile hard disk is repaired, please recheck whether the mobile hard disk works normally.
Chkdsk: Checks a volume’s file system and file system metadata for logical and physical errors.
F: Refers to the drive letter of the mobile hard disk partition;
/f will fix errors on disk;
/r will find bad sectors and restore readable information;
/x means to forcibly dismount the volume if necessary; any open handles to the drive will be invalidated.

Enter the command chkdsk

4. Reformat the mobile hard drive to fix the fault

Formatting the hard disk can solve many hard disk failure problems. Please do a good job of data backup before formatting. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Connect the faulty mobile hard disk to the computer, and press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.
open windows disk management
Step 2: Next, find the device that needs to be formatted, right-click on it and select the (Format) option.
right click to select format sd card in disk management
Step 3: Select the required file system: FAT32, NTFS or exFAT. If it is a mobile hard disk used in the Windows system, it is recommended to choose NTFS. Check (Perform a  quick format), click (OK), and follow the instructions to complete the formatting process. After the formatting operation is completed, the mobile hard disk failure can be repaired.
Select the required file system
The above methods can help resolve issues with a stuck or frozen mobile hard disk. However, if the problem persists, it may be due to a high number of bad sectors, indicating that the hard disk is reaching the end of its lifespan. In such cases, it is advisable to backup your data and replace the portable hard drive. Additionally, if you have lost important data while formatting or using the hard disk, you can refer to the third-party data recovery options for mobile hard disks.

III. How to restore the data in the mobile hard disk?

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter is a software specially used to restore various data files. When you accidentally delete important files, empty the recycle bin, or format the disk/storage, you can use this tool to retrieve the lost data. The software covers four functional modules, including file recovery, format recovery, partition recovery and image creation, which can help you solve all data loss problems in an all-round way.
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2. How to use Renee Undeleter to recover the data in the mobile hard disk?

Step 1: Download, install and run Renee Undeleter on the computer, and select the (Whole Disk Scan) option on the main interface.
Note: Do not install on the disk that needs to restore data, so as not to cause data overwriting.
select whole disk scan to scan disk in renee undeleter
Data recovery function introduction:
Fast Partition Scan - Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Whole Partition Scan – Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Whole Disk Scan – Analyze and get partition information and perform a full scan of the entire partition.
Image Creation – You can create a mirror image for a partition to back up the current partition state.
Step 2: Next select the hard drive that needs to recover data. After the selection is complete, click (Next).
select a disk to recover in renee undeleter
Step 3: Please wait patiently for the scan. This process will find out all the partitions that have existed on the hard disk, and then the “Select the partition you want to scan” window will pop up, and you can select the deleted partition to scan. If not selected, all partitions will be scanned and it will take longer.
Step 4: You can preview the files during the scanning process. If all the required files have been found, you can check the files to be restored, and then click the (Recover) button to restore the data to other disks of the computer.
select taget files to recover with renee undeleter